The EU Commission is carrying out a review of the organic regulation which sets the baseline rules for all organic food and farming throughout Europe.

The EU Commission is carrying out a review of the organic regulation which sets the baseline rules for all organic food and farming throughout Europe. The process started last year, when we invited our Soil Association licensees to contribute views to the EU-wide public consultation that was carried out to seek views on the current regulation and how it might be improved to support the developing European organic market.

The official proposal drafted by the Commission was published on 24 March 2014, but the final version must now be negotiated and agreed by the Council of Ministers and take account of the views of the EU Parliament. This will involve a long process of consultations and redrafting, and any new rules are unlikely to come into force before 2017.

The stated aim of the review and the proposed changes is to bring organic rules closer to the organic principles, and to:

• strengthen consumer confidence;
• create simpler and more harmonised production rules;
• implement a risk-based control system that will improve effectiveness and efficiency;
• provide a more reliable import regime and fraud prevention.


We have already started the process of identifying key areas of change and engaging with the Defra organic unit, the IFOAM EU Group who represent organic interests in Brussels, the European Organic Certifiers Council (EOCC), industry groups and other stakeholders in order to actively play our part in influencing the negotiations that will produce the final text.

It is very difficult at this stage to predict the final impact of the proposed changes as there is a lot of scope for change and flexibility for implementation. However, there are some significant proposals under consideration. You may have seen these in recent media coverage.

Some key areas of proposed change are:

• the removal of current ‘exceptional rules’, for example the use of non-organic ingredients, breeding animals or seeds - these would be subject to flexible implementation and review until 2021;
• a risk-based approach to inspections so that licensees with a long history of compliance may not need physical inspections annually, but high risk operations may need a number of inspections every year;
• residues of prohibited substances over 0.01mg/kg leading automatically to the loss of organic status – compensation may be paid to farmers by members states where it is proved the farmer has taken all appropriate measures to prevent risk of contamination;
• development of a system for improving the environmental performance of businesses - this excludes farmers, aquaculture and micro-enterprises;
• group certification for smaller operators to reduce the cost of certification.


You can view the draft legislation on the Commission’s website at http://ec.europa.eu/agriculture/organic/eu-policy/policy-development/index_en.htm